March 29, 2012​It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with Carson. With his ears perked and tail high, the small, wide-eyed horse eagerly splashes through the mud to ensure that he is the first to greet you to Whispering Winds Equine Rescue. His winter coat is beginning to shed out, leaving a few small patches of smooth brown hair scattered vicariously across his otherwise fuzzy dark body. Carson’s unruly black mane is abnormally thick and his tail has yet to grow to its full length. With the demeanor of a dog, and an appearance comparable to a homely teddy bear, this 2-year-old mustang is far from the iconic wild horses that are often associated with the freedom and spirit of America’s west.

“You’ll have to excuse Carson,” Says his owner, Susan Pohlman as she trudges up behind him and shoves him out of the way. “He thinks he owns the place.”

The bond between Carson and Pohlman is evident as they collaboratively welcome me to Whispering Winds Equine Rescue – the largest wild horse rescue in the Pacific Northwest. Susan Pohlman and her husband Tom are the sole founders and directors of Whispering Winds. The couple moved to Roseburg in 2007 to expand their rescue and in less than 6 weeks went from 17 to 36 horses.

As a member of the Alliance of Wild Horse Advocates, Pohlman is doing her part to save horses, like Carson, from enduring abuse, starvation, neglect and slaughter – a fate that unfortunately is becoming more common among captured mustangs, due to recent population control efforts.

“Wild horses galloping across the vast plains of the west is an image that has long been associated with the spirit and freedom of America. However, as a nation we have herded them, broken them, abused them, and slaughtered them” Explains Pohlman.

According to BLM records, Members of congress and the Bureau of Land Management removed more wild horses in 2010 than any other year; and have planned to reduce the number of animals by 12,000 this year (leaving 26,600 horses and burros on the 26 million acres set aside for the animals to live) - triggering an outcry among animal advocates. Also, CNN’s 4-part series “Mustang roundup: taking the wild out of the west” (launched early this year) put a national spotlight on the issue. Despite this, placing such large numbers of horses in the current economy has proven extremely difficult.

Pohlman works with numerous organizations across the country to assist in the placement of unwanted mustangs. In 2007 she assisted in the placement of, or taking in, over 250 horses nationally.

“I live and breathe caring for unwanted, abused, neglected, and abandoned horses 24/7. Regardless of whether I'm sick, injured, tired, the weather is bad, or I'm having a bad day they depend on me to take care of them.” She says

Pohlman’s love and compassion for all of her animals is evident; however she admits that Carson holds a special place in her heart, as she considers him one of her ‘miracle rescues’.

At birth, Carson was rejected by his mother so Pohlman was his only chance of survival. She rushed Carson to the veterinarian where he was hooked to an IV and given blood transfusions and bottles of synthetic colostrums.

“The vet said he wasn’t going to make it through the night,” recalls Pohlman. “So I said if he’s going to die, he’s going to die at home where people love him.”

Tom Pohlman recalls his wife making a bed for the baby horse in the tack room and spending the night with him. “He made it all night, and he made it the next day,” says Tom. “He got IV fluid and 2 shots twice a day for six weeks...Susan basically lived in the tack room with him the first three months of his life.”

Carson’s mother, once one of many free-roaming wild horses, was captured by the Nevada department of agriculture. Pohlman explains that while wild mustangs can roam freely, the land itself is divided into sections controlled by different bureaus of the US Department of the Interior (such as the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the Department of Agriculture, etc.). However, the Wild Horse and Bureau Act only protects animals caught on BLM land; therefore the fate of a captured mustang is determined largely by where it happens to be at the time of capture.

Carson’s mother was caught off a Nevada range that wasn’t part of the BLM herd management area. Though many of these horses go straight to slaughter, Carson’s mother (along with 30 other mares) was sent to a University of Nevada fertility study program where she was injected with PCP on other drugs (in an attempt to experiment with and control the fertility of wild horses). When the program lost its funding the horses were feedlot-bound until Pohlman got wind of the story and took them in. Once the horses arrived at Whispering Winds Equine Rescue, Pohlman discovered that seven of them were pregnant. Out of the seven, Carson was one of only three foals that survived.

Carson is now almost three years old and will begin under-saddle training in the spring. While Pohlman owns 36 horses,Carson is one of only a handful that she actually rides and trains. Most of the rescue horses at Whispering Winds have mental and physical injuries that make them incapable of being ridden and unadoptable. Therefore, Pohlman has allocated the majority of the 160-acre property as a sanctuary where horses that she feels are not adoptable are allowed to roam free and undisturbed.

“We just let them retire and be horses.” She says.

The 36 wild horses at Whispering Winds are divided into four herds: the Piute Indian horses, the BLM mustangs, the Nevada Range horses, and the Sheldon wild horses – all of which at one point were slaughter bound.

The Piute herd was the first large group of horses to arrive at Whispering Winds in 2007. The Indian reservation had gathered all the wild horses on their land and shipped them to holding pens in Fallon Nevada where they would be shipped to slaughter. A woman in southern California raised funds to rescue the horses, but had no where to send them. Pohlman agreed to take in the ten horses, and after rehabilitating all but one (who had to be put down), she managed to adopt out seven of them.

The Nevada range herd (which included Carson’s mother) was originally supposed to go to another facility. However, Pohlman explains that at the last minute she learned it had fallen through, and agreed to take in the horses.

“So a truck full of 30 horses showed up at my door on December 1st, 2007” Pohlman recalls. “We weren’t at all prepared for that many horses in such bad conditions.”

The majority of wild horses who currently reside at Whispering Winds Equine rescue are a part of the BLM herd, as Pohlman rescued them from the BLM’s wild horse adoptions.

According to Wilson, “BLM horses are rounded up from 19 different herd areas across Oregon (more mustangs are also rounded up in other western states and shipped to various wild horse corrals in Oregon, as some rounded up in Oregon are shipped east).”

Once BLM horses are rounded up, they are categorized as “adoptable” or “unadoptable.” Willis Lamm, spokesman for the Alliance of Wild Horse Advocates (AOWHA) explains that the “Omnibus Appropriations Bill created two classes of supposed ‘unadoptable’ wild horses and burros…these are horses and burros over ten years of age, or any animals of any age that were presented for adoption three times and were not adopted…With over 8,000 wild horses meeting this classification, the only viable commercial market involves the kill buyers.”

All of the mustangs in Pohlman’s BLM herd are what she refers to as 3-strike horses, or horses that hadn’t been adopted at three different adoptions and, as a result, were considered “unadoptable”.

However, even with such strict “unadoptable” classifications, Pohlman maintains that the BLM mustangs are better off than the Sheldon wild horses, as Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge (located in Northern Nevada and Southeaster Oregon) is managed by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), so they aren’t protected under the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act.

“Sheldon horses don’t have an adoption,” explains Pohlman “they’re supposed to contract out with facilities, but some slip through the cracks. They gather like 300 horses at a time, but they don’t place all those 300 horses.”

According to Lamm “Past Sheldon gathers have demonstrated a great deal of chaos and mistreatment of the animals. Contractors are paid $300.00 per head to haul the horses away and many have simply disappeared from the radar, presumably sold to slaughter.”

Pohlman’s Sheldon herd is a prime example of how these horses slip through the cracks, as they were rescued off a truck that was secretly on its way to a feedlot, but caught by a brand inspector and sent back.

“There are a lot of things that people don’t know. They just don’t understand some of the stuff that’s going on.” Says Pohlman

Pohlman worked with the Alliance of Wild Horse Advocates and other activist groups to shut down Oregon’s 4 slaughter houses. However, now great deals of factory bound mustangs are shipped by the truckload over the Canada and Mexico borders – where they are slaughtered under worse conditions.

Pohlman and her husband (with the help of a handful of volunteers) single handedly provide shelter, care, rehabilitation, and necessary medical attention to countless wild horses that pass through Whispering Winds Equine Rescue. Though Pohlman grew up riding and training quarter horses, it was her husband Tom who suggested they attend a mustang adoption.

“I wanted to see what it was like,” says Tom. “So we went there and I guess you could say we fell in love.”

Long-time mustang owner Leigh Williams maintains that she prefers mustangs to other breeds of horses because of their genetics. “Mustangs today are a result of years of natural selection; the ones with bad feet, bad teeth, and bad confirmation die off while the one’s with good genetics reproduce and pass down the strong genes.” Out of Williams’ eleven horses, seven of them are mustangs.

“Mother nature is the best breeder,” She says.

Lamm (who also owns several mustangs) agrees, saying “I live on the high desert, which is mustang country, and there's nothing better for riding in this arid, rocky country than a mustang who has good feet and strong legs.”

While Pohlman was aware of the beneficial physical attributes of mustangs, she was more attracted to how different wild horses are from domestic horses.

“The horses just have something about them… they’re raw.” She explains “Domestic horses you raise and their so used to being around people and having things done for them; but Mustangs, they have to care for themselves so their smarter.”

“Mustangs have to troubleshoot.” Adds Tom, “A domestic will go down around and follow the trail, a mustang will just walk off the hill. There’s just something different about them.”

Though running Whispering Winds Equine Rescue requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice, Pohlman maintains that there is no greater reward than to watch a horse like Carson – who was on deaths door – run, buck, play, and grow.

“The best part is knowing that these guys avoided slaughter – every single one of them. And they get to just be horses; be what’s natural to them.” She says “it’s just so rewarding. And that’s what keeps us going.”